Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary

1796, "elevated tract of relatively level land," from French plateau "table-land," from Old French platel (12c.) "flat piece of metal, wood, etc.," diminutive of plat "flat surface or thing," noun use of adjective plat "flat, stretched out" (12c.), perhaps from Vulgar Latin *plattus, from Greek platys "flat, wide, broad" (see plaice). Meaning "stage at which no progress is apparent" is attested from 1897, originally in psychology of learning. In reference to sexual stimulation from 1960.

Wiktionary

plateau

n. 1 A largely level expanse of land at a high elevation; tableland. 2 A comparatively stable level in something that varies. 3 (context dated English) An ornamental dish for the table; a tray or salver. 4 (context sports broadcasting English) A notable level of attainment or achievement. vb. (context intransitive English) Reach a stable level; level off.

Related phrases:

Wikipedia

Dissected plateau, a highly eroded plateau which may have sharp relief

Oceanic plateau, a submarine area higher that the normal sea floor depth

People:

Joseph Plateau (1801–1883), a Belgian mathematician

Places:

Plateau, Benin

Plateau, Ivory Coast, a district of Abidjan

Plateau, Nova Scotia

Plateau (state), a state in Nigeria

Plateau Department, a department of Benin

The Plateau, a neighbourhood in Montreal, part of the borough of Plateau-Mont-Royal

In mathematics:

Plateau's problem

Plateau's laws

Plateau (mathematics), a region where a function is constant

In music:

Plateau (song), a Meat Puppets song popularized by Nirvana

PlatEAU (band), an electronic band

Other uses:

A Thousand Plateaus, a 1980 book by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, the second part of Capitalism and Schizophrenia

Plateau phase, in physiology and human sexuality, the second stage of sexual arousal in the Masters and Johnson model

Plateau effect, reduction in the effectiveness of once effective measures over time.

Plateau (game), abstract strategy game

Plateau Systems, a provider of Talent Management Systems

PLATEAU, formerly the Rodin Gallery in Seoul

Plateaux, the French plural for Plateau (the word is of French origin) may refer to:

Places:

Plateaux Department (Congo)

Plateaux Department (Gabon)

Plateaux Region, Togo

Praia, Cape Verde, also known as Plateau

Plateau

In geology and earth science, a plateau ( or ; plural plateaus or plateaux), also called a high plain or tableland, is an area of highland, usually consisting of relatively flat terrain that is raised significantly above the surrounding area, often with one or more sides with steep slopes.

PlatEAU (band)

PlatEAU is an electronic music project featuring cEvin Key and Phil Western. The project resembles a very loose approach to the Download project featuring the same members. The song names and album titles refer to the coffeeshop culture of Amsterdam in The Netherlands implying a "trip" through their musical voyages. The album art also reflects this concept with imagery on their first release on Hypnotic Records in 1997, Music for Grass Bars. This release had a special CD jewel case in order to create a holographic-motion effect with the cover art insert. The genre is most closely related to IDM, experimental, techno and trip hop.

Plateau (mathematics)

A plateau of a function is a part of its domain where the function has constant value.

"Plateau" is a song written by alternative rock band the Meat Puppets, which first appeared on their 1984 album Meat Puppets II.

The song was popularized when the Meat Puppets performed it with the grunge band Nirvana during their famous 1993 MTV Unplugged appearance. This version appears on Nirvana's 1994 album MTV Unplugged in New York.

UK rapper Plan B named his debut album Who Needs Actions When You Got Words, taken from a lyric in this song, and sampled the Nirvana collaboration on his 2007 mixtapePaint It Blacker.

Plateau (formerly called Rodin Gallery) is an art gallery in South Korea on Taepyeongno street in Jongno-gu, a central district of Seoul. The gallery contains sculptures of Auguste Rodin (1840–1917). It opened on the first floor of Samsung Life Insurance building on May 14, 1999, as 'Rodin Gallery'. In May 2011 the gallery was renamed 'Plateau' in order to better express its 'commitment to embracing the Korean and international contemporary Art Scene'.

Plateau (game)

Plateau is a two-player abstract strategy board game invented by Jim Albea.

Related phrases:

Usage examples of "plateau".

It was a gigantic amphitheatre carved into the side of the plateau upon which the upper city - the Imperial palace - rested, constructed by the skill of artisans, the sweat of builders, and the blood of slaves, vast enough to comfortably seat 50,000 people, more than the populations of Rillanon and Krondor combined.

Circle S herd which the broncho boys had bought in Texas in the spring of that year, and which they had herded and driven northward throughout the summer to winter on the Montana plateau, later to be driven to Moon Valley, and there put into condition for the market.

Herzer set one maniple of third decuri to work on the tree while the rest dug a shallow trench along the edge of the plateau.

The area around Minot, North Dakota, was devastated, as was the Cumberland Plateau that stretched across Tennessee, and central Nebraska.

They reshaped them, configuring the topology to enhance mathematical prowess, which took us onto a plateau beyond what the neural modifiers had been capable of doing.

On the highest of the mountain plateaus about a hundred palikars were quartered in a dozen stone huts.

He bounded from rock to rock down to the plateau, and reached it just as Vendusos and his ten booty-laden palikars arrived.

Along the seaward-facing edge of the plateau clusters of pandanus palms, with their ripe, red fruit, waved their feathery banners to the breeze.

This, indeed, was his real discovery, not to mention the layer of humus which he felt certain would be found amassed on the plateau, and the wondrous fertility which it would display as soon as a ploughshare had passed through it.

Pharaohs lay, were separate temples, each to the east of its corresponding pyramid, and connec ted by a causeway to a massive gate-chapel or propylon at the edge of the rock plateau.

The small tombs have their chapels contained in their stone mastabas or superstructures, but the mortuary chapels of the pyramids, where regal Pharaohs lay, were separate temples, each to the east of its corresponding pyramid, and connected by a causeway to a massive gate-chapel or propylon at the edge of the rock plateau.

Beyond there, if you could just get through the Sandia Mountains, you had open plateau country, and farther east there would be more and more choice of roads.

Vorneen did what he could to steer himself away from the houses, toward the flat scrubby plateau just beyond.

Grant, Speke, Burton, Cameron, Stanley, describe the wooded plateau of Central Africa as the principal theatre of the barbarous warfare between chief and chief.

All the other travelers--Grant, Speke, Burton, Cameron, and Stanley--do not speak otherwise of this wooded plateau of Central Africa, the principal theater of the wars between the chiefs.